1. Technical Field
Embodiments described herein are related to the field of high-speed interface design, and more particularly to bit stream encoding techniques.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computing systems typically include a number of interconnected integrated circuits. In some cases, the integrated circuits may communicate through parallel interfaces, which simultaneously communicate multiple bits of data. In other cases, the integrated circuits may employ a serial interface, which sequentially communicates one bit of data at a time. In some cases, both parallel and serial interfaces, individual bits of communicated data may be differentially encoded.
In some cases, the integrated circuits or devices within a computing system may communicate over the serial or parallel interfaces using one of various communication protocols. Such protocols may allow for the transmission of messages between various components of the computing system in addition to the transmission of data. The transmitted messages may include reports of levels of activity, requests for specific modes of operation, and the like.
During operation a computing system, data to be transmitted may be encoded prior to transmission. In cases where a parallel interface is employed, such encoding may be employed to reduce an amount of switching noise. Alternatively, encoding may be used to produce a sufficient number of data transitions to allow clock and data recovery circuits to properly lock to a received data stream.